At What Price Equality

Beren deMotier * writer * artist * human

At What Price Equality?

The morning that Canada legalized same-sex marriage on a national level, we (me, the wife, the three kids), were lounging in a hotel room in our pajamas, with the curtains open to Stanley Park. It was the first day of our three week Canadian vacation and the irony was not lost on us; we, who’d received our license refund only months before, the State of Oregon flinging our marriage back at us with a “void” stamped in ink, were suddenly within the borders of a nation who welcomed us as worthy.

Yet we hadn’t any intention of taking them up on the option.

We were already married to our friends, to our family, and a piece of paper from Canada wouldn’t get us Social Security survivor benefits, automatic inheritance or any of the other rights of marriage. The only way to benefit from the marriage certificate would be to leave our Portland home, our lesbian mom friends, pull our children out of school, and move to Canada.

Right.

But when we fell in love with Canada after arriving in Campbell River, the fishing town I lived in during childhood, and became even more enraptured with Quadra Island, a paradise peopled with draft dodgers who never left and ecologically minded artists, the idea of moving became real.

Certainly, many of us considered the idea when same-sex marriage started being a possibility in Canada, while America scurried to deny us the chance. But there wasn’t a pride parade Northbound, because it takes a lot to uproot a family, a couple, or an individual, from home.

For us, and for other lesbian or gay parents favoring peace, the draft looms in a shadowy future, a possibility that already had us thinking of Canada, of peace protests and conscientious objector status, of shooting our sons in the foot.

A friend has already offered a small caliber weapon for the job.

Then there is socialized medicine, a free press, a multi-party political system, and for me, the chance to relearn how to say “oot and aboot” as I did in my youth, creating a mixed up accent of Canadian, Californian and Pacific Northwest that had people speculating about my European heritage for years.

My wife was both for, and completely against, the idea. In theory, it sounded grand: move to Quadra Island, grow organic vegetables, telecommute, and bicycle for transport through the 52 inches of annual rain. In practice, it could endanger her job, and would separate us from the friendships and family relationships we have worked hard to nurture.

Our kids were strongly opposed, despite deer in the backyard or eagles overhead. We had put down roots so they wouldn’t share our disjointed childhoods, moving every few years, losing touch with friends, unconnected. Our plan had worked. They were deeply embedded and entwined through hair-like strands of self, shared experience, commonalities, until these strands could weather a hurricane. But a move?

On the beach where I once walked barefoot on the barnacles, taking tourists to dig for butter clams and collect oysters every summer (they are abundant now, and poisonous to man), I stretched out my arms and felt at one with the world. This was my religion; the beach beneath my feet, the mountains beyond, the sky filled with eagles, vultures and gulls, and the laws that recognized us as equal.

I justified that the kids needed more nature, less city, in their lives. That the chance to kayak, to hike, to see bear swimming, eagles feasting and breathe fresh air, was worth more than living where I worried every time they left the house, humans scaring me far more than any wild animal.

In that mood I could not think of one person who kept me tied to home. Our house was just a house, something that could be replaced. I was angry at Oregon, angry at the United States (and always angry at our President for sending us into war), angry that the entire nation wasn’t outraged that our right to marry was put to a vote by the populace, because we are of the same gender.

It was hard to re-enter America, to go through customs, and drive the freeway south. Our future was mentally balanced on a scale; our current life on one side, and a life with equality, and the unknown, on the other. When does it cost too much in human dignity to stay? When does one’s allegiance deserve to be shifted? When is it worth uprooting a family and beginning a new life, in a welcoming place?

Back home it took days to feel “home”, to grow back in love with the paint on the walls, to recall the memories home held, to feel a kinship for the other parents prepping their kids for school. It was on our daughter’s first day back that I felt I could stay and fight. As I walked across the playground, greeting friends, acquaintances, old teachers, I thought, “This is my home. It’s worth fighting for.”

The scales are tipped for now.